Emancipation
by Brievel
Summary: If she had had but a drop of courage, a speck of humility, a grain of sense, how much different might things have been?
1. Mother

"Stay away from me!" His voice whipped out, fingers flexing and squeezing as the Darkness, the hunger, the lust surged through him. She didn't listen, of course, overriding the command and cycling open the door, stepping inside and staring in wide-eyed horror at her husband's broken body. Terrified pale blue eyes lifted to gleaming ochre, her whisper yet another repeat of what she had already said.

"What have you done?"

With a guttural snarl, he lunged, wrapping one iron fist around her white neck and yanking her into the room, the door slamming shut as he pinned her to the wall, choking the life out of her. His burning eyes bored into hers, watching in raging hunger as the life slowly drained out of them. She stared back, infinitely sad and sorrowful, her lips moving. "My boy," she whispered, scarcely audible. "My poor boy… I'm so proud… you are so strong, a survivor… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should've been there for you… I'm sorry."

He felt her go limp under his hand as her eyelids slowly closed. His fingers sprang open like a steel trap released, and the frail body slumped to the floor. He took another step back, staring down at the crumpled heap of red hair and fine clothes, before turning away with cruel purpose. Stepping through into the next room, his eyes swept over the four younglings huddled together there, their huge eyes staring at him, their palpable terror a heady drink. A grin of pure evil curled his lips up as around them, all the exits sealed shut.

* * *

 **A response to DarthRuinous' spectacular enhancement of Darth Plagueis, "Moment of Truth."  
**


	2. Healing

She woke slowly, in the small yacht's tiny medbay. The first thing she noticed was the deep silence, the only sound that of the ship's hyperdrive thrumming. The next thing she noticed was that she could breathe. All the memories came clawing back, rising in her throat like bile, and she reached up to touch her neck, first a butterfly touch, then harder. The bruises she knew must've been there were now gone, and when she turned her head, she saw the deactivated medroid sitting beside the bed.

Swinging into a sitting position, she lowered her bare feet hesitantly to the cool plating floor, noting absently that her outer dress lay thrown nearby, bloodstains evident even in the crumpled heap. Standing slowly and shivering, she stepped cautiously out into the corridor, making her way warily towards the cockpit and peeking inside. The captain, the crew, all were gone – only a single redheaded young man remained, bent over a console. He spoke without looking up or turning, his voice oddly flat and unemotional. "Mother."

Plucking up her courage, she stepped into the room, not daring to look around lest she see tell-tale blood or carbon scoring. "Where are your siblings?"

His head twitched slightly, as though he had started to look at her and decided not to. His voice retained the unemotional quality, impassive as a coroner announcing cause of death in a court of law. "Gone."

She caught her breath, struck to the quick, but could not resist asking. "Why did you spare me?"

There was a long pause, and her nerve failed her, to be replaced by mounting apprehension. Just as she was about to turn and flee, he spoke again. The emotionless quality was gone, to be replaced with puzzlement, and beneath that, a raw note of the pain of a long-festering wound. "I don't know."

And in that moment, she was no longer helpless victim, terrorized and controlled by her husband and scorned by her offspring, but _mother_ , warm and loving and sorrowful. Moving forward without conscious thought, she reached out, enfolding her son in a tight embrace. He stiffened, fingers clawing, and for a moment she thought he would wrap them about her neck again and finish the job of earlier. The thought brought no fear now, only grieved realization that it was no more than she deserved and fierce determination to not fail him, yet again, in her last moments. So facing death, she continued to hold her son, tight to her, as she should have all these years. A whisper slipped out, sad and proud. "Oh, my boy. My poor boy."

A tremor went through him and he cautiously uncurled his fingers. She closed her eyes, beginning to rub his back gently, and slowly, infinitely slowly, glacially slowly, she felt him respond. Beneath her arms, a minute measure of tension bled away, and he simply stood unresisting. A single crystal tear slid down her face to land on his shoulder.

And then he collapsed, pulling her down with him. The two huddled together on the cold durasteel floor, the mother sobbing brokenly as she clung to the son, a thousand wordless apologies years too late, the son staring stonily out at the stars whirling past, his resolve slowly melting beneath the flood of his mother's sorrow. When she finally fell to silence, curled fingers stroking his unkempt hair, he spoke, voice cold and dead as space. "I'm a monster, Mother."

She shook, her voice a raw anguished whisper. "You are what we made you."

He pulled away and looked at her. "I chose this."

She studied his face, reaching out and cradling his cheek. He sat, stiff and unresponsive, staring coldly and intently back at her. "You had no choice," she murmured, with the distant grief of one beginning to come to terms with their failure.

His eyes – blue once more – narrowed fractionally. "You have spawned a monster. That does not bother you?"

Her face crumpled and she pulled him close again, pressing his head to her shoulder, ignoring the resurgence of tension in him. "I love you," she replied brokenly. "I have always loved you. Not well enough, not nearly well enough. But I love you."

A faint, hesitant pressure on her back, a splayed hand pressing against her shoulder, the warmth of a thin arm across her back and side, was the answer she got. Deep inside him, a twisted, broken heart unclenched just a fraction, and for the first time since his infancy, hidden against his mother's shoulder, a single gleaming drop slid from his eye. Healing had begun.


End file.
